Time and Time Again
by Featherhawk
Summary: What happens when the Doctor dies? Completely speculative. This is my first fanfiction, so please review!
1. An Unexpected Thought

Time And Time Again

Chapter One- An Unexpected Thought

The Doctor grimaced with pain as he pushed the button on the TARDIS control panel. 'Ugh,' he thought to himself. 'I am getting old.' From appearances, that wasn't exactly true. He looked as good as ever- blue eyes still alive with laughter, skin without a wrinkle, straight, shoulder- length brown hair glimmering in the light. If one didn't know better, they might call him a punk. An 18-year-old punk. Jeans, a baggy t-shirt, the works. He recalled with amusement how he'd had to barricade the TARDIS doors against something a lot more scary than Ghengas Khan's hordes- teenage girls. Shaking with silent laughter, he was brought back to reality by a sudden stab of pain in his back. Sitting down on the couch beside the TARDIS console, he sighed. 'No delaying the inevitable,' he thought. 'So what do I do now?' For the Doctor was not young, not remotely. He was dying.


	2. Martha Jones

Chapter Two- Martha Jones

Martha Jones was sitting in her living room chair reading a book, when suddenly a loud crash reverberated throughout the house. She looked up in astonishment to see a tall, punkish teenager standing over the remnants of her favorite vase, face full of guilt. "Excuse me, I'm so sorry!" he exclaimed. "I can pay for that- but look, I finally found you! It took ages- do you even bother to list your name in a phone book?" He trailed off as Martha looked at him in amazement.

"Who are you?" she questioned loudly, thoroughly annoyed. "You barge into my home uninvited, break my favorite vase," the teenager's face grew even guiltier, "and then have the nerve to act like you know me! So go on then! Who the hell are you?"

The teenager's mouth slanted upward in a small smile. "Oh, but I do know you," he replied softly. "Martha Jones. We fought Daleks together. And the Master, remember him? Whole world held hostage for an entire year, and no one even knows."

Martha's face filled with shock. "Oh my God, Doctor, it's you. It's really you." She stared, stunned, and then stood up to walk over and embrace him tightly. The Doctor hugged her back.

"It's been too long," he said. And that was true. 40 years for her, she looked to be in her 60s now, and so many more for him. So many more.

Martha pulled back and surveyed the Doctor. "You're a punk!" she exclaimed. The Doctor laughed. "But how?"

"To put it simply, regeneration. All Time Lords can do it."

"Oh." Martha wasn't all that surprised. Traveling with the Doctor made her accustomed to some pretty strange things.

The Doctor was grateful when Martha didn't push the subject further. He didn't want to explain why he was really there.

"I don't even know what to say," Martha said after a brief pause. "I always thought you'd come back. Always hoped. Ever since you left." Her eyes met his, glaring accusingly.

The Doctor hesitated, unsure of what to say. "Well, it's just that… we moved on. You didn't need me anymore. Your family needed you. And anyway, you wanted to leave."

"But not forever," Martha cried. "I told you that! But you just left! Is that what you do to everyone, Doctor? You just leave?"

The Doctor had heard this accusation many times before, but hearing it once again brought a fresh wave of guilt. "It's not like that, you don't understand. You could never have a proper life traveling with me."

"But I could have tried!" Martha replied, by this point shouting. Then she sighed. "This isn't worth it. Shouting about it isn't gonna change what happened." She stopped abruptly, and they both knew the conversation was over.

"So what have you been doing the last 40 years?" the Doctor asked. "Come on, you must have done something."

"Well, I worked with Torchwood a bit. Nothing extreme. Just stopped a couple of alien invasions." The Doctor grinned. 'Not extreme' he thought, chuckling to himself.

"And I got my degree in medicine, of course. Been a practicing doctor for the last 35 years."

"That's great!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Just great! I always knew you were good."

"What about you?" Martha asked. "Any new companions?"

"Oh, a few here and there," the Doctor replied nonchalantly. "There was this one robotic, sentient tree I brought along for a bit. Great guy, always… Oh!" And with a gasp, he collapsed to the floor.

"Doctor, are you alright?" Martha exclaimed as she knelt down beside him. "What happened?"

"It's… nothing. Nothing," the Doctor said. But his pale-white face gave him away. "I've gotta get back to the TARDIS, that's all." He used the chair to push himself up, then lurched toward the door.

"Doctor, wait!" Martha cried. He turned to face her. "Will I ever see you again?"

The Doctor sighed. "No," he said. "That's why I came. Goodbye, Martha Jones."

"But Doctor," Martha began to ask, but he was already gone. Even as she flung open her front door, the one he'd just gone out of, and looked down the street, nothing of him could be seen. With a sigh, she sat back down in her living room chair and continued reading her book. A single tear trickled down her cheek.


	3. Captain Jack Harkness

Chapter Three- Jack Harkness

Jack could barely remember any other profession in his life besides this one. After all, he'd been working in it for at least 300 years now. Torchwood. He'd had a bunch of people helping him along the way, but most of them were gone now. Dead and buried in the Earth, their worldly possessions in storage houses, if Torchwood should ever need them. It was not the life he had wanted, but it was the life that had been given to him. Oh well, it could have been worse.

He was in the middle of scanning an alien artifact on the computer when he heard it. Lie a siren almost, but yet so different. At first he couldn't place it, but then the memories came flooding back. Memories of a time where he hadn't felt so alone, memories of a better life. It was the TARDIS.

Abandoning all work, he raced up the steep stairs to the surface, glad that his body was still strong and young enough to move as fast as he pushed it. Arriving at the stairs, he shoved open the door with one hand and raced to the blue box. 'Doctor,' he thought. 'It's really the Doctor!' Racing towards the blue box, he almost collided with a teenager standing near it. "Oh, sorry," he said, and would have continued his pursuit, except for the fact that the teenager grabbed his arm.

"What?" he was about to exclaim, but the teenager cut him off.

"Captain Jack Harkness, boy am I glad to see you! Almost missed you there, fast as you were. You haven't aged a bit! Oh well, that was to be expected. How long has it been? About 200 years right, for you at least. 200 years, wow!"

"Doctor?" Jack asked. "Doctor! Wow, you're…" He was at a loss for words to describe how the Time Lord looked. "Different," he concluded lamely.

"You're not," the Doctor replied, grin on his face. "So where were you headed to, anyway? Perhaps I should let you get going."

Jack blushed scarlet red for an instant. "No, no problem, I was just going to, you know, take care of some Torchwood business, but it's not urgent, so, you know…" He trailed off, very embarrassed.

The Doctor seemed not to notice his stuttering. "Oh, great! Come in, come in!" He beckoned towards the doors of the TARDIS.

Jack slowly entered. "Oh my, you haven't changed it a bit!"

"Nah, I sort of like it the way it is. Don't you?"

"Yeah, it's great!" Jack grinned at the Doctor's enthusiasm, and sat down on one of the chairs next to the console. The Doctor sat on the other.

"So Jack, tell me, what have you been doing for the past 200 years?" the Doctor asked.

"Oh, you know, Torchwood stuff. Stopped a couple alien invasions, found a couple stalkers, normal things. Oh, and Martha worked with us for a bit! Great help she was, but, time passed and…" He was again at a loss for words, something that only seemed to happen to him around the Doctor.

For a second, a flicker of regret echoed in the Doctor's eyes. "Yeah, I know." But that flicker was soon gone. "So come on, you must have some good stories! I can't believe you went through 200 years of Torchwood without seeing anything worth telling."

Jack grinned. "Well, normally I could get arrested for this, but so long as you don't tell anyone…"

"I won't."

"So, about 100 years back, there was this alien that came to Earth. But you see, it didn't have a physical form. It survived by feeding off the energy in human's brains, which meant it had to inhabit human's brains. However, when inhabiting the brain, the alien began to shut down all of the brain's functions in its quest for more and more energy. So basically it was a parasite. We didn't know what to do; dead bodies were popping up all over town with no explanation for their death, since you couldn't see the loss of energy with any human technology at the time. But we, well, actually I, came up with a way to stop the alien. I created a fake brain with all the same energy as a human brain, but in much larger proportions. I planted it in Torchwood, and when the alien came running, expecting its biggest feeding yet, we trapped it." After a moment's pause, it was clear that the story was done. The Doctor was curious about what they did with the alien once they caught it, but was afraid to ask. He didn't always agree with Torchwood's methods, and he didn't come here to start an argument.

"Doctor, so what about you?" Jack asked. "Come on, you must have a story to share!"

"No, sorry Jack, I really have to go," observed the Doctor. He was beginning to feel weak, and didn't want to collapse like last time.

"Well, then, I was wondering…" Jack didn't quite know how to ask. Finally he blurted it out. "Can I come with you?"

The Doctor sighed. "No," he said.

Jack began to protest. "But we're immortal, both of us! It'd be perfect, we wouldn't have to be alone!"

The Doctor felt a slow sinking pain in his gut. For Jack to say that aloud, he must be lonelier than the Doctor had thought. But he didn't know about what was happening to the Doctor. And it was best that it stay that way.

"No Jack, I'm sorry," the Doctor said. "It wouldn't work."

Jack was about to argue further, but then he saw the look in the Doctor's eyes. It was a look of utter despair, an emotion he rarely showed. So Jack decided to let the subject drop.

"Well then, I'll see you around."

The Doctor couldn't bear to hurt anyone else. He'd done so much damage in his life, but for once he would help by telling someone what they wanted to hear, even if it wasn't true. "Yeah Jack, I'll see you around."

As the Doctor walked back to the TARDIS, opened the doors, and stepped inside, Jack felt like a hole had been torn inside him. Because he knew, knew from the Doctor's dejected step, and the look in his eyes, that he had lied.


	4. A Girl, a Park, and a Memory

Chapter Four- A Girl, a Park, and a Memory

Once inside the TARDIS again, the Doctor let out a sigh. There was a reason why he normally tried to avoid goodbyes- they never did any good. But what was there to lose now? So he might as well keep going.

He began to set the coordinates without any trace of a smile. This next visit wasn't going to be any easier than the others. But he still had to do it. However, the TARDIS had other ideas.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he asked it, as its motors began to come to life without any instruction to do so. "Hold on a sec!" But either the TARDIS couldn't hear him, or it just didn't want to listen. The motors grew louder and louder, the movements greater and greater, until they stopped.

"Okay, where am I?" The Doctor asked. But, obviously not getting a response, he decided to go investigate. Opening the doors, he was confronted by the scene of a park meadow, with ordinary suburban houses behind it. So ordinary, he almost wanted to laugh. This was not what he had been expecting.

There were several sets of play equipment in the park, with children running and laughing all over them. He glanced around, noting how happy the children were, and just enjoying the moment. However, one child caught his eye.

She was a small girl, looking to be about 6 or 7 years old. Her long blond hair blew in the wind as she swung back and forth. She was laughing like she didn't have a care in the world.

Unable to resist, he walked over to the girl. "Hey," he said, smiling down at her. She smiled back, but didn't respond. He tried again. "Do you want me to push you?"

"Okay." She grinned at him radiantly as he moved behind her. His strong hands pushed lightly on her back as she swung back and forth, back and forth. Now she was laughing even harder, and he found himself beginning to laugh too. For a moment he forgot about everything; about all he had lost, about his imminent death, even about what he was trying to accomplish before he died. He was absorbed in the moment, in the action of making the little girl smile.

"Hey!" A loud voice broke into his thoughts. "What do you think you're doing, punk, pushing my girl like that?! Get away from her, I say, away! Or I'm going to have to call the cops on you!"

"Okay, okay," the Doctor stuttered, backing away slowly. He turned to look at the woman, who he assumed to be the girl's mother. She had medium length blonde hair, was moderately tall, and looked like she wanted to thrust a knife through his heart. Gosh, were mothers ever protective these days. He even remembered when… but no, now was not the time. He had to deal with this woman before she sent him to spend his last days in an Earth jail cell, not reminisce about times long gone.

The Doctor meant to just apologize to the woman, and leave the scene immediately. However, his thoughts and words betrayed him. "Do I know you?" he asked. She did look a bit familiar, now that he thought about it. Someone from a previous life. But he couldn't figure out who.

"No you don't," the woman exclaimed. "And you better pray you don't get a chance to, or I'll hang you by your neck and feed you to the crows! Don't touch my girl, do you hear me?"

"Yes, sorry, my apologies. I better be going." The Doctor turned around and walked away.

"Mommy," the girl cried to her mother as the Doctor was leaving. "Mommy, don't make him go, he was nice!"

"Of course he wasn't. You know plenty of nice people, and he is not one of them! Now come on, Rose, or you'll be late for your lessons." The mother grabbed Rose's arm and towed her away.

The Doctor stood still, stunned. 'But of course', he realized. The woman was Jackie, that's why she looked so familiar. Of course she was younger, but still as annoying and protective as ever. As for the girl…

The Doctor pushed open the TARDIS doors and stepped inside. He stood for a moment, and then spoke. "Thanks," he said to it. "Thanks for giving me what I never had the courage to get myself." Sitting down, he put his head in his hands and sighed.


	5. So This Is How It Ends

Chapter Five- So This Is How It Ends

The Doctor had many regrets from his long life, many indeed. They tore at him from the inside out: all those he abandoned, all those he was forced to leave to die, all those he betrayed. They haunted him in his waking hours and in his sleep, clamoring to be heard. And he couldn't drive them away.

All those people he never said goodbye to. Donna, Sarah Jane, Ace, Susan, Romana, even Mickey, the idiot. And so many more; so many who he had abandoned, so many who had been trapped, so many who died. He missed every one of them with a longing that devoured his soul. It wouldn't go away, couldn't be cured. There was no time to repair the wounds they made inside him. No time.

As he sat on the chair in his TARDIS console room, the Doctor felt his life force ebbing away. There was no time to visit anyone else, as soon he would be gone. Only time to remember, to rejoice in what was and to regret what could have been. He guessed it would have to be enough.

Almost 2000 years. Quite short for a Time Lord, but quite long enough for him. Now that he thought about it, he was ready to die. After saving the universe so many times, and meeting so many extraordinary people, he didn't think there was much more to live for. It wasn't worth it, being alone. No joy or awe could replace the feeling of loss, knowing that he was and always would be completely alone. That's why it was time to move on.

He breathed in and out. He closed his eyes. He leaned his head back in the seat. A single tear was on his cheek, but no one was there to brush it away.

And so there, completely alone, the Doctor drew his final breath. His soul left his body, and dissolved into the fabric of the universe, giving it new life. His mind passed into all the minds of every being in the world, giving them all a little more wonder. And his body lay there, preserved for all eternity, floating in the Time Vortex with no means of escape. Suspended in the TARDIS, suspended in time, as a Time Lord should be. And gradually people forgot about the Time Lords, about Gallifrey, about the war that destroyed two great empires but created a man. Fact turned into legend, forgotten over the ages of the universe. But it didn't matter. Because the man who lay suspended in time for all eternity had finally achieved what he had always wanted- peace.


End file.
